


Give it a Whirl

by dracoqueen22



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Ficlet Series, M/M, Rough Fragging, Self-Hatred, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Two Assholes in Love, not quite romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-27 11:09:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5045965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracoqueen22/pseuds/dracoqueen22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because Sunstreaker's gone through slag and so has Whirl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give it a Whirl

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [X-Amount of Words](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2264019) by [dracoqueen22](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracoqueen22/pseuds/dracoqueen22). 



> So a while ago I wrote "X-Amount of Words" and it wanted to go in several different directions, one of which was a Sunstreaker/Whirl pairing. Well, that didn't work out because the muses wanted a different path and I wanted to keep all the potential pairing references subtle, but I kept the snippets I wrote, expanded them on tumblr, and then expanded him again for this mess.

  


**-1-**

  
  
He stares into the mirror and there's no word to describe what crawls through his spark except _loathing_. So he breaks it. He slams his fist into the reflective surface until there's nothing left but jagged edges and an empty frame. He doesn't care that others are giving him strange looks and edging out of the washracks and someone's probably called Ultra Magnus because he's done it, he's gone crazy again.   
  
Someone better lock Sunstreaker up before he calls Starscream for help or something equally stupid.   
  
The glass tinkles to the ground at his pedes, still staring back at him, judging without comment. Sunstreaker stomps his pedes, grinding the debris to bits and pieces, powder and grit.   
  
He's made his mistakes. He's made a frag lot of mistakes. He doesn't deserve forgiveness. Why the frag does he want it so badly?   
  
Whirl's the only one who lingers. No, lingers is the wrong word. He pushes through the crowd of fleeing mechs and stares at Sunstreaker throwing himself a pity party as he destroys everything he can get his hands on.   
  
Whirl's the only one who walks into a room full of broken glass and broken things, and demands, “What the frag you break all those mirrors for?”   
  
Sunstreaker's vents heave and his hands ball into rage-filled fists and he still wants to break something. He looks at Whirl and thinks, _there's a mech who wants to fight_. Maybe he wants to be broken. Sunstreaker's good at that, too.   
  
“Didn't want to see what it showed me,” he spits out, stepping forward, more glass crunching beneath his pedes. “Can't stand looking at myself anymore.”   
  
Whirl cocks his helm and he has no face, but somehow, he looks at Sunstreaker like Sunstreaker is the stupidest thing he's ever seen.   
  
“What the frag you talking about?” he demands. “All I see is you, all shiny and slag. Enough to make a mech go blind or something. Which sucks because I only have one, loser. I need it.”  
  
Sunstreaker gapes at him, because that's not quite the answer he expected. Not from Whirl of all mechs. _What do you expect_ , he thinks, _this is what you deserve_. Not pity. Never pity.   
  
Don't you dare pity him.   
  
Whirl keeps going, he says, “Wish I'd thought to do this first though.” He walks right over all that broken glass, one claw tapping the wall and the empty frame. “Magnus is gonna go into spark-arrest or somethin'.”   
  
Sunstreaker stares.   
  
Whirl stares back. Whirl twitches.   
  
Sunstreaker's vents catch. Maybe Whirl is looking for a fight after all. Because then Whirl gets indignant, he draws himself up, all spindly limbs and clacking pincers.   
  
“You got somethin' to say or is your vocalizer as broken as the rest of you?” Whirl demands, getting offended.   
  
Sunstreaker grins. It's not a happy look.   
  
And Ultra Magnus does, in fact, have a conniption fit.   
  
Rodimus can’t decide if he’s pissed or highly amused.   
  
Drift looks two steps from spouting some kind of spiritual pitslag, but a glance from Ratchet draws him up short.   
  
Ratchet declares he’s not fixing either of them. He washes his hands of them, telling them they'll have to appeal to First Aid or Ambulon.   
  
Sunstreaker and Whirl limp off together, after acquiring an absurd amount of punishment detail. It’s not quite a friendship, but it’s something.   
  
Yeah, it’s something.   
  


**-2-**

  
  
Sunstreaker tries to behave. He tries to be nice, to bury his arrogance down deep, to show how apologetic he is. Because he is. He's sorry. What happened is not what he meant to have happened, but he lost his mind, literally and figuratively. He was hurting and is hurting, and he knows he needs to make things right.   
  
He needs to behave. He needs to smile. He needs to be friendly. He has to make amends. For himself and everyone else.   
  
“Fuck them all,” is what Whirl says. “Ain't nobody perfect. We do what we gotta do.”   
  
Oh, it's enticing. It's tempting to follow him down that road. It's alluring to think that way instead of constant self-abasement.   
  
Especially for Sunstreaker who can remember, Primus can he remember, how it used to feel to be confident, to be arrogant, like nothing in the universe can touch you.   
  
Except that something can and it did, and they were small and insignificant, but not so much that they couldn’t hurt. They hurt a lot, in ways worse than physical, in ways that Ratchet with his magic hands can't fix.   
  
Whirl’s method seems a lot easier. But Sunstreaker doesn’t know if it’s better.   
  
He just knows that being with Whirl makes him hate himself a little less. Whirl makes it easier to walk into Swerve’s crowded bar without feeling like he ought to hide in the corner and avoid optic contact.  
  
Whirl makes it easier for Sunstreaker to hold his helm up high and remind himself that, mistakes or not, he's still worth something. To himself more than anyone else.   
  


**-3-**

  
  
Whirl never calls him by his name.   
  
It’s always “honeypie” or “brightspark” or “Sunny” or some other cutesy nickname that’s both weird and strangely endearing and… bothersome.   
  
It reminds Sunstreaker of Sideswipe and Sideswipe reminds him of failure and that always sends him spiraling back down into that place where mirrors are the enemy because all he can see in them is himself.   
  
But Whirl always seems to know when he’s at his lowest. There’s no outward sign but before Sunstreaker knows it, he’s dragged out of his room or out of his chair or out of Swerve’s. It doesn't matter if he's in the middle of his shift, or brooding in the darkness, or a new cup of engex.   
  
When it comes to this, Whirl doesn't really understand the word _no_.   
  
Whirl always plants them in the training room and he attacks and Sunstreaker defends and he attacks back. And it’s not training, it’s not practice. It’s real.   
  
Whirl doesn’t pull his punches. He aims for all the soft, tender parts like he’s trying to remind Sunstreaker what it means to fight for your spark. To make him remember how he’d clawed himself back to life twice over.   
  
It works. Every time it works, and Whirl is always so smug afterward. He drips energon and chipped paint and dented panels, and he doesn’t have a face, but Sunstreaker knows he’s smirking.   
  
There are always consequences. Ratchet's growled reprimands are enough to strip the paint from their armor. They spend a lot of time in the brig. But even though they’re in separate cells, they can still talk to each other.   
  
Whirl’s the one who talks. He tells stories and Sunstreaker’s sure only a third of them are true. If that. But he likes to listen to them anyway.   
  
All the best truths are lies.   
  


**-4-**

  
  
The thing about Whirl is… he’s kind of an aft. Okay, not kind of. He is. But Sunstreaker can relate to that. Because while Whirl was off doing Wrecker things, Sunstreaker was the local asshole.   
  
He had a reputation. He wasn’t ashamed of it. In fact, he was pretty damned proud of it. He had talent. He had looks. He had skill. So what if everyone thought he was arrogant? Sunstreaker called it jealousy and moved on.   
  
Besides, he could back up the talk.   
  
But that’s beside the point. Whirl is an asshole.   
  
The kind of jerk that Sunstreaker finds himself stupidly attracted to. That encourages him to have little problem with throwing Whirl against a wall and fragging the daylight out of him. (Magnus doesn’t approve of that either, especially since Whirl tends to goad Sunstreaker in public.)  
  
All Whirl does is encourage him. Mech is vocal like you don’t believe. And he has no shame. None. Not an ounce.   
  
He demands harder and faster. He pushes for more, more, and more. Sunstreaker is helpless to it because all he wants to do is give, give, give.  
  
Whirl scratches his armor on purpose. Because the first time Sunstreaker snarls at him to “watch the paint,” Whirl crows with glee.  
  
“Ya care about it now, do ya?” he taunts and he leans into Sunstreaker, all pincers that won’t let go and a field that drips of lust. “Am I good or am I good?”   
  
“That's not how the idiom works,” Sunstreaker finds himself panting, hips working, plunging into Whirl again and again, lubricant splattering down on his hips and the floor. Making a mess.   
  
That's what Whirl is good at, really. Making messes.   
  
“It works how I want it to work, Sunshine,” Whirl taunts and he wraps a claw around Sunstreaker's intake, delicate enough to never hurt, but with just enough pressure to send Sunstreaker's arousal skyrocketing. “Now ya gonna give it to me, or not?”   
  
Sunstreaker answers by slamming him harder against the wall and leaving streaks of blue-gray paint behind. Whirl howls his pleasure. His pincer tightens by degree.   
  
Sunstreaker can't remember the last time he felt so free.   
  


**-5-**

  
  
The first time Whirl meets Bob, Sunstreaker expects chaos and violence. He's not entirely sure why, but he braces himself for it anyway.   
  
Bob sniffs Whirl's pedes and scuttles around him in a circle like he's a new and tasty treat to devour. His little antennae wave.   
  
Whirl reaches down to pet him and Bob skitters away, waggling his aft. It's a game Sunstreaker's seen him play before but it probably looks like a rejection to anyone who isn't familiar with it.   
  
He intends to say something, but then Whirl tilts his helm. His field spikes with what can only be glee. His claws clatter together.   
  
“So that's your game,” he says and he pounces.   
  
Bob scampers out of the way at the last moment.   
  
Whirl picks himself back up, undeterred, and tries again.   
  
In the end, Sunstreaker's not really sure who's chasing who.   
  


**-6-**

  
  
He never asks Whirl why.   
  
Not even when claws get snagged in his wires or he leans in for a kiss Whirl can't reciprocate.   
  
Whirl is Whirl, and he's not beautiful. Not by any stretch of Sunstreaker's imagination.   
  
His paint's always scuffed because he's both incapable of waxing himself properly and he can't be bolloxed to care. He's all spindly limbs and awkward angles and drab colors.   
  
He is, perhaps, the opposite of everything Sunstreaker finds attractive.   
  
And yet, he can't keep his hands off Whirl.   
  
He likes to turn Whirl into a writhing, squirming mess. To see how many overloads he can wring out of the rotary. Even more since Whirl can take anything Sunstreaker has to offer.   
  
Truth is, Sunstreaker's desire for Whirl has nothing to do with Whirl's appearance. But everything to do with who Whirl is. What he has become.   
  
So. No.   
  
Sunstreaker never asks Whirl why he doesn't get Ratchet to fix him.   
  
And he never will.   
  


**-7-**

  
  
Sometimes, they share a berth.   
  
It's an exercise in patience, something neither of them really have. Cause Sunstreaker's nightmares make him twitchy and Whirl's no better. He's lost count of the number of times they've woken each other up with thrashing and clawing and ready to rip out a spark.   
  
They work it out.   
  
Whirl is all thin limbs and angles. He's just small enough that with a little finagling, they fit on Sunstreaker's berth. Even when Bob insists on joining them and draping his Insecticon frame over all four of their pedes. He snuffles and his ex-vents tickle and Sunstreaker tries not to squirm while Whirl makes threats he never follows through on.   
  
Sunstreaker curls around Whirl from behind because it's the only way they fit. He notches himself against Whirl's backplate and forces himself not to think about other mechs and other berths and those he left behind on Cybertron that he kinda-sorta misses.   
  
Sometimes, in the middle of night, he wakes up and finds Whirl shaking in his arms. His pincers click with distress.   
  
His nightmares are as bad as Sunstreaker's.   
  
He murmurs names Sunstreaker's never heard of. His field is a chaotic tangle.   
  
Sunstreaker never asks about them. Just like Whirl never asks what horrors has him waking up, screaming and clutching his helm and screeching to the heavens to “get them out.”   
  
A mech's demons are his own no matter how often he shares a berth.   
  
  


**-8-**

  
  
They talk a lot. Some might say about the things that don't matter, but words aren't all that important anyway. Words are lies. Words cause trouble.   
  
So they talk.   
  
And Sunstreaker never says what he feels and Whirl never says it either.   
  
But he laughs when he pins Whirl down to the berth and frags the daylight out of him. He grins when Whirl challenges him and they go limping away together.   
  
He holds his helm up high when they walk into Swerve's, and they both get nasty looks but no one says anything.   
  
_They deserve each other_ , he heard someone mutter once. Probably Smokescreen, the dumbaft.   
  
For once, Sunstreaker doesn't take offense to that kind of thing. Because they are words. Words don't matter. Words aren't what's important.   
  
The way Whirl pushes him and calls him Sunflower and pets Bob when he thinks no one's looking.   
  
That's the kind of stuff Sunstreaker cares about.   
  
Those are the conversations that matter.   
  


**-9-**

  
  
The time comes when the Metrotitan has settled, Shockwave is gone, Megatron is an Autobot, and Starscream is the leader of Cybertron.   
  
Sunstreaker has to make a choice: should I stay or should I go?   
  
And Whirl's the one who shoves him off the Lost Light. He's the one who shoos Bob along and all but kicks Sunstreaker in the aft.   
  
“This place isn't for you anymore,” he says, not to be mean, it's just the way Whirl is. “You've done what you came to do. Go do something else.”   
  
He's an enigma, Whirl is. Sunstreaker wants to argue because he likes Whirl, frag it. Flaws and all. Maybe, even, there are other emotions. One he doesn't dare speak because that particular emotions has proven to be the most dangerous.   
  
Sunstreaker doesn't say it, though. He doesn't voice it. He doesn't turn back and look at Whirl and say, “But I want to stay with you.” Because Whirl isn't good for him, except in all the ways he _is_.   
  
Wants and needs are two separate things and anyway, Sunstreaker makes his choice long before Whirl gives him the push.   
  
Sunstreaker walks off the _Lost Light_ and later, much later, he watches it take toward the stars, off another adventure, and leaving him behind. Bob sits at his pedes, watching as well, and he makes a snuffle of joy when Sunstreaker looks down at him.   
  
It was good for a while, he thinks, but not all things are meant to last.  
  


****


End file.
